Ludford decries treatment of Chagos Islanders

5.57.44pm GMT Fri 22nd Sep 2006

Photo: Sarah Ludford with (left, front) Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos Refugees Group, their lawyer Richard Gifford and supporters

Following her meeting yesterday with Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos Refugees Group and a showing of John Pilger's 2004 documentary 'Stealing a Nation', London's Liberal Democrat Euro-MP and peer Baroness Sarah Ludford today lambasted the British government for its utterly inhumane and unprincipled treatment of the people of the Chagos islanders over the last 40 years. She said:

"The duplicity, mendacity and hypocrisy of successive UK governments, including the present one, is a complete scandal. I defy anyone who learns the history of this - and the ongoing dishonesty and defiance of the courts by this government - not to feel ashamed to be British."

"Heir apparent Gordon Brown has taken to making speeches about the meaning of Britishness. Home Secretary John Reid preaches at British people about how they should behave. How can they hold their heads up in knowledge of their disgraceful abandonment of these 4,000 British citizens?"

"I look forward to Europe, whether the EU or the European Court of Human Rights, defending British citizens from the abuses of human rights that they have suffered at the hands of their own, British, government."

Note:

The Chagossians were uprooted through brutality and trickery from their Indian Ocean island home in the late 1960s by their colonial 'protector' Britain, in order that the government of Harold Wilson could give the biggest of their islands, Diego Garcia, to the Americans for use as a military base. They faced poverty, suicide and breakdown in Mauritius where they were dumped. Victory in court action in the last 8 years has given the islanders hope of return, but the British government is seeking to defy the courts and is playing cat and mouse with Chagossians. It adds insult to injury that while Chagossians are not allowed to return home, Diego Garcia is populated by Americans and workers from Singapore and the Philippines.

See the UK Chagos Support Association website:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carlene.lyttle/news.htm

Photo: Sarah Ludford with (left, front) Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos Refugees Group, their lawyer Richard Gifford and supporters